Community Health Center: Core Data Project, 2001-2002 (ICPSR 21520)

A survey was administered to any patient that presented for services at a health center between 2001 and 2002. Patients were asked to complete a brief survey with questions relating to demographic, relationship status, reason for choosing this health center, mental health status, and abuse history.

A survey was administered to any patient that presented for services at a health center between 2001 and 2002. Patients were asked to complete a brief survey with questions relating to demographic, relationship status, reason for choosing this health center, mental health status, and abuse history.

Access Notes

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public.
Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

This study is provided by ICPSR.
ICPSR provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis
for a diverse and expanding social science research community.

Universe:
All individuals aged 18 and older living in 6 New England states.

Data Type(s):
survey data

Data Collection Notes:

The survey was completed by 3,103 patients during the data collection period. The survey was administered by Patient Registration staff at the time of patient registration.

Modifications were made to the survey during the collection period. Both versions of the survey instruments are available.

To protect the confidentiality of respondents, all variables that could be used to identify individuals have been collapsed or recoded on the public use files. These modifications should not affect analytic uses of the public use files.

Methodology

Study Purpose:
The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility of collecting gender identity and sexual orientation data at a community health center to better understand how these characteristics were related to patients' self-reported life experiences, and to explore how this information could be used to improve patient care.

Study Design:
Individuals seen during a 12-months period completed a one-page, voluntary questionnaire at intake.

Sample:
Any patient presenting for care was given the opportunity to complete the survey.

Description of Variables:
Significant demographic variables include gender, transgender, sexual orientation, relationship status, annual income, and education. Abuse history variables include whether a person was a victim and/or perpetrator. Discrimination experiences relating to sexual orientation status were included. Other key topics included use of alcohol and other drugs, discrimination, smoking, and mental health.

Presence of Common Scales:
Several response categories were used.

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: